Matt showed us a great night in Downtown and Midtown Houston.

We kicked things off with generously sized frozen margaritas and dinner at Cyclone Anaya's. I had ceviche for the first time, which was delicious, and is now one of my favorite foods.

After dinner we made the rounds, and had some rounds. We went to Pub Fiction before meeting up with David and his friends at a bar called Sambuca, which featured an excellent Latin Jazz band. We then headed to the Red Door, where we had only one drink because the roof deck was closed.

We closed out the night at a dueling pianos bar called Howl at the Moon. Definitely a fun bar, and the perfect end to a killer night out.

As mentioned, David's house is on a lake. A lake filled with turtles and alligators.

A picturesque view of the lake can be enjoyed from the deck, and you can walk right down the private pier that extends over the lake. This was a favorite spot for us and the gators, who like to tan on a small corner of the deck.

It was fascinating to see them up close and in action. Sometimes Precious, Matt's Pomeranian pup, gets a little too close.

Alligators move through the water effortlessly and with no wake. They never seem to be in a hurry, but move deliberately, cautiously, and cover ground fast. At night, their glassy eyes reflect an eerie red, which is how you spot them in the dark. By the end of our stay, we'd seen a couple adults, a mid-sized one, and one or two babies.

The hospitality continues.

Even though we'd only met once, Erica's cousins David and Matt were nice enough to entertain us for a couple days at David's lake house in Missouri City. Great, right? Well it just begins there.

In addition to the comfortable accommodations, David cooked us one hell of a dinner. David's reputation as a cook preceeded him, and even though expectations were high, he did not disappoint. Two serious racks of pork ribs were prepared with David's famous and ultra-secret barbecue sauce, which has taken him a lifetime to perfect. Side items were grilled corn and crispy oven roasted potatoes, both of which were exceptional.

We washed it all down with some Shiner (an excellent Texas beer) and after a few more, were able to persuade David to forfeit the ingredients to his BBQ sauce, but not the proportions. It's a start, and now WE have a lifetime to perfect it.

We spent the rest of the night drinking, laughing, and watching alligators on the lake. Awesome.

The video game meetings continued when we met with Caladus for lunch at Pappa's BBQ, in Houston.

It was nice to finally meet another long-time online friend in person. Though it was weird to see him in the silly blue jumpsuit he wears to work :-P

Cal, thanks a bunch for the good food and good company.

DeathDealer (a long-time friend from UT) was nice enough to invite us over to his house, where we spent the night.

He and his wife (who shall remain anonymous to protect their privacy) served us a three-course meal including Boston cream pie, to make us feel at home. We then got shamefully owned in Guitar Hero by his son Shocker and spent some QT with the family. The dogs Sobe and Scooter took a liking to us, and it was great to finally hang out with DD in person. The comfort of a friend's home was a welcome change from the back of our car.

Thanks to the whole family for bravely welcoming us into their home.

The Johnson Space Center is NASA's center for human spaceflight activities, aka "Mission Control."

The cool (and surprising) thing is that most of the modern space programs and technologies are housed and operated in the original NASA buildings, as opposed to some sleek new facilities down the road. For example, today's mission control room is just one floor below the original control room where they put a man on the moon. I guess the people that work here are pretty smart. Not only did they put a man on the moon (allegedly) but they also know exactly how many steps are on each flight of stairs. Pretty impressive.

Houston is also where NASA does the Space Shuttle, Skylab, Lunar Rover, and neutral buoyancy training. We saw all that, some massive liquid hydrogen tanks, and the original Saturn V rocket, which is one big mofo.

Tell any Texan you're going to Galveston and they'll most likely ask, "Why?" with a bewildered look.

After spending a night there, we understand. The coolest things there are The Strand (historic district) and the monument to the Storm of 1900, the United States deadliest natural disaster (even more than Katrina). Oh, and for all you Broadway fans, there's an Avenue Q.

Riveting.

OK. The map has been updated and is current up to 2:30AM last night. We've got more pictures and posts on the way. Today we are exploring the fourth biggest hole in the world (a.k.a the Grand Canyon) and it's likely they don't have wifi there, so expect updates in a day or two.

Stay tuned...

It's come to our attention that some visitors have had some difficulty posting comments and registering to the site. I have made some changes to hopefully help avoid some of the confusion relating to registering, and commenting.

In terms of registering, you can now choose your own password instead of using the randomly generated password. To register, click the "Register" link to the left or click Here!

As far as commenting, it is by design that you must register and log in to post comments. I have hopefully made it a little easier to register (see above). Once registered and logged in, you can post comments to your hearts desire.

There are many reasons why you must register and log in to post. Mostly, we'd like to know who you are so we can respond accordingly. Further, in the same way we get lots of spam emails, in a short time this site would be riddled with spam comments.

The site is completely up-to-date with pictures to our current location (Missouri City, TX). You can check them out by going to "The Pictures" or clicking here!